Bye weeks, injuries mounting and another London game give us a very tricky main slate this week. The Lions are back on the slate at home in the dome, and we have some critical injuries that we need to make decisions on, especially with the field gravitating heavily to a couple of spots.
Let’s dig in.
Slate Overview
As mentioned in the intro, there are a couple super critical spots driving most of the decision making on this slate in both drafts and DFS lineups. The Lions / Packers game is certainly one, but I actually think it’s a little more in draft games, and you’ll see why in the next section. But there are actually three spots with injuries shifting projections outside of that game we really need to hone in on.
The Texans face the Giants woeful defense, and David Montgomery is out again. But Jawhar Jordan is also out after surprisingly stealing a decent chunk from Woody Marks last week (& playing well!). This leaves Woody as a very chalky RB in a great matchup with a strong projection for an affordable price. But while CJ Stroud may seem like a logical leverage pivot there, he himself is popping into some top optimals even ahead of Jordan Love.
The Bucs will be without Emeka Egbuka in an exploitable matchup with the Panthers, and they welcome Baker Mayfield back at QB. That leaves Chris Godwin and Ted Hurst projecting as the best “values” at the WR position on DraftKings. There are actually a litany of potential cheap WR options, but the Bucs project as much more of a sure things with less guesswork on roles.
All of the 49ers WRs are hurt, leaving Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle with monster projections and monster ownership.
If you package all that up, you can see how builds come together. Especially with no Lamar or Allen at QB, there is no real opportunity cost at QB, so that Stroud/Love area of reasonably priced options make perfect sense. Then, you have these cheap WRs (like Hurst and Godwin) and Woody Marks that allow you to get up to top options like CMC, Kittle, Gibbs, Bijan and Packers WRs.
That’s where your opponents are headed this week.
Optimals & Chalk
Like each week, I ran 50 lineups with no restrictions in RotoGrinders LineupHQ, which is where I like to start to get a gist for what is popping in “optimal lineups”. Here was the top projected lineup on DraftKings:
Here you see what I mentioned above in the summary section, with a couple major standouts.
I had been thinking earlier in the week that Bijan would make a killer pivot off Gibbs, but with Brian Robinson Jr. ruled out (and some Niner defense injuries like Nick Bosa), Bijan’s projection gets reasonably close to Gibbs for a nice discount. A similar situation arose with Jalen Coker and Matthew Golden at WR. Golden is going to be popular and a great play in a vacuum, but depending upon your source Coker projects similarly or even better than Golden for a similar price.
But either way, the same roster construction applies to the top projected lineups. Woody, CMC, Kittle, a mid tier WR, two cheap WRs and a spend up for Bijan or Gibbs.
So now it’s up to us to figure out the tournament angles away from this.
Tournament Angles
I was so excited for the perfect tournament pivot game with Ravens/Bengals, but of course Lamar Jackson has been ruled out again this week. I still do think Zay Flowers and Ja’Marr Chase make for strong tournament pivots in a week where there honestly are not very many of those. Zay won’t be the nuclear option he is with Lamar, but it’s still a nice matchup, and they may be playing from behind here. That may be true because Ja’Marr Chase goes crazy against a Ravens team that he has owned over the course of his career.
You don’t have to like it, and I certainly don’t like it, but this is the best spot of the year for Bo Nix and Jaylen Waddle. For what it’s worth, the sims agree. Nix and Waddle pop as arguably the best tournament plays on the board in some of the sims I look at, and it makes sense. The Cardinals are a bottom 5 defense, and despite what Jahmyr Gibbs did to them, EPA shows them as a pass funnel defense. It is entirely a leap of faith, but Nix at this price and this ownership prior to this season would be the best play imaginable. Maybe he really is completely cooked, but if he bounces back, he makes for a great spot to attack and has cheap stacking partners (Waddle, Engram, Sutton?) that allow you to fit some of these studs around them.
Baker Mayfield has been terrible this season, and it’s not ideal he doesn’t have Emeka Egbuka, but I always chuckle when multiple WRs are projecting amazingly like Hurst and Godwin but the QB is an afterthought. It also takes a bit of a leap of faith, but the Panthers are still down multiple starting corners, and they have sneakily been really good against the run their last two outings and poor against the pass. You also can play Tez Johnson over Godwin/Hurst as an additional ownership pivot. Cade Otton is projecting to be quite chalky, too, but he is a theoretically strong point per dollar option for cheap.
The field is not playing any of these 49ers WRs because no one has any idea who benefits most. I agree this setup makes George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey great plays, but there almost has to be something at least remotely useful from at least one of these WRs. I’d be lying if I said I had super strong conviction, but I think Jordan Watkins makes so much sense, especially given some strong coach speak this week and his playing time last week. I am least interested in Brandin Cooks and Jacob Cowing, but I do think Christian Kirk is at least mildly interesting. I’m not sure he can play enough given how long he’s been out, but if he can, he’d be my pick. They make for potential leverage off both their mega chalk teammates and other cheap WRs.
If Puka Nacua does not play, Konata Mumpfield catapults up the value rankings. He might be the best option in that scenario. I would also not be shocked if Jordan Whittington steps into a dollar store Puka role, and of course Colby Parkinson and Tyler Higbee also really benefit. It’s a great spot for Kyren Williams and Blake Corum, but the Raiders should have some success here against a really banged up Rams defense, which could lead to excess value in the Rams pass catchers.
Speaking of that Rams defense, I think this is setting up to be a sneaky good spot for Ashton Jeanty and Brock Bowers. Everyone is completely out on Jeanty, and that’s understandable. But he’s still catching a ton of passes (he has more targets than CMC this season!), and the Rams are missing all their best run stuffers on the DL. Trent McDuffie is also a GTD, which could open up Brock Bowers as an elite TE pivot. The Rams will score on this horrible Rams defense either way, and we could be in for a bit of a sneaky shootout with far less attention on this game than others.
I’m obviously not going to tell anyone not to play Packers/Lions. I do think the Packers defense is better than most think, and they especially do a good job of forcing the opponent to dink and dunk down the field. I’m not avoiding anyone in this game, but it sets up best for Jahmyr Gibbs and Tucker Kraft, given the Packers defense and the Lions laughable production allowed to TEs (especially inline) so far this season. Kraft is a pretty killer pivot at TE, too.
The Colts are down so, so bad that I am not sure the Vikings will be pushed to score much, but if they are, Kyler Murray and Justin Jefferson could explode. The Colts lost Sauce Gardner to injury, and they have mightily struggled against the good pass games they’ve faced. The Vikings are not that, but Justin Jefferson certainly is.
Some other quick hitters:
On DraftKings specifically, I think it’s actually pretty appealing to punt it off at QB with Malik Willis or Geno Smith, create a cheap little stack of that game with some combo of Braelon Allen (if Breece out), Garrett Wilson, Omar Cooper, Caleb Douglas, Malik Washington or Chris Bell.
CJ Stroud isn’t overlooked, but his WRs are. Stacking him with Nico Collins as a pivot and different roster construction projects strong here, but I have done crazier things than hope Marvin Harrison‘s role expands in his second game with the team. The Giants ruled out safety Jevon Holland today, too.
I haven’t mentioned Bucky Irving, and I want to make sure I do. He’s a very bipolar play, but that’s really ideal for tournaments, especially on a slate where his WR teammates are crazy chalky. The Panthers have been stronger against the run in the last two games, but they were a sieve prior to that, and Bucky is just too talented for this price and potential matchup. It’s certainly possible he loses work and is inefficient, but he also has that explosion game upside like we saw against the Cowboys.
The Bryce Young/Tetairoa McMillan/Jalen Coker stack on the opposite side of chalk Bucs is also very appealing. The Bucs pass defense has been good to this point, but it’s so consolidated here and the Bucs have always been a big pass funnel.
I love Zay, I love Ja’Marr, and I’m just saying… Tyler Huntley is very cheap on DK.
Flag Plants
Often times, a lot of touts, including myself, will give this lengthy list of all these different plays and options for a DFS slate. I get it, but at the end of the day I also think it’s important to specifically communicate your actual favorite plays. So, here’s a list of my actual flag plants for this week. I think they apply to pretty much every format and every site, with just the TE position in your draft games being a smidge different.
QB – CJ Stroud, Bo Nix
RB – Ashton Jeanty, Bucky Irving
WR – Justin Jefferson, Jaylen Waddle
TE – Tucker Kraft
But if you did want to ask me about some of my other favorite tournament options (all positions), these would be those guys.
Additional Core
QB – Baker Mayfield
RB – Bijan Robinson, Braelon Allen (if no Breece)
WR – Zay Flowers, Ja’Marr Chase
TE – Brock Bowers (if no McDuffie), Colby Parkinson
Let’s get it.
